


The Witching Hour

by madrabbitgirl



Series: Slice of Love [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 24 hour diner au, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Human, Awkward Romance, Fluff without Plot, Friends to Lovers, Human Aziraphale (Good Omens), Human Crowley (Good Omens), M/M, Madame Tracy - Ghost, Slow Romance, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, diner au, forgive me father for i have fluffed, ghost story, two idiots falling in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:00:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27809494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madrabbitgirl/pseuds/madrabbitgirl
Summary: Crowley decides to pop by the diner a little earlier than usual and encounters an interesting new friend doing some witchy things in the end booth. Meanwhile, Newt blushes to death every time Anathema looks at him and Crowley finally gets Aziraphale's number!Part of the Slice of Love universe.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Slice of Love [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2023696
Comments: 7
Kudos: 68





	The Witching Hour

**Author's Note:**

> This is a part of the Slice of Love AU but doesn't directly reference either of the previous stories so it might work as a stand alone?
> 
> At this point I don't think Crowley or I know exactly what he means by 'job'.

Two in the morning was, apparently, just a slight bit busier than four. It was interesting, Crowley thought as he slid onto his usual stool at the counter, seeing Aziraphale flitting around the place and actually _doing_ some work. He could see two women in a booth at the far end, one an older woman with bright red hair and the other a younger girl with long dark hair and a dress that looked like something from a Mamas and the Papas concert. There was another table that appeared to be hosting some kind of cast party for a theater- they were all wearing matching tee shirts. His angel was laughing as he took their order, cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling. 

Crowley made a note to ask him what sort of plays he liked. Were these people friends of his? 

The angel bounced his way over to speak to the two women, who had some kind of cloth spread over the table and a candle lit. It would have looked romantic except that Crowley was fairly certain there were moons and pentagrams all over the cloth. He didn’t notice Newt appearing behind the counter to take his order. 

“Who are they?” Crowley asked, motioning with a slight nod in the direction of the two women. Newt followed his gaze, and Crowley couldn’t miss the beet-red hue that flashed over Newt’s cheeks. 

“That’s Anathema. She’s a-,” Newt lowered his voice to a whisper, “she’s a witch. She says we’ve got a spirit here and she’s trying to contact it.” 

Crowley nodded, and noticed the cute way he was only mentioning the younger girl. Love was, apparently, in the air. “Have you talked to her?” 

“I-I-I- well, we’ve- you know, it’s been busy tonight,” Newt said, pushing his glasses up his nose and clearing his throat awkwardly. “D’you want a coffee again? No food?” 

“Yup,” Crowley said, popping the ‘p’ on the end of ‘yup’ to emphasize the point. Newt nodded at him and turned to pour out a cup from the carafe. Crowley went back to his casual stalking of the angel, this time following his movements in the shiny reflective cube holding the napkins. 

“Crowley!” Aziraphale said, coming behind the counter to take Crowley’s coffee from Newt in order to serve it to Crowley himself. “You’re early tonight.” 

“Ah, finished a little job I had, thought I’d swing by and see how your night was going,” Crowley said, wrapping one hand around the white mug in front of him. Aziraphale gave a quiet squeal of delight and picked up Crowley’s free hand, examining the slick black polish that coated his fingers. His ring finger was painted in a shiny apple red for contrast. 

“Dear boy, these look marvelous,” Aziraphale said appreciatively. Soft, thick fingers gripped Crowley’s knobby ones, twisting gently to look at the manicure. Crowley's imagination went briefly wild with the idea of Aziraphale giving him a manicure. Massaging lotion into his dry skin... Crowley blinked his way back to reality as Aziraphale was asking, “Do these have anything to do with your job?” 

“Ah, not exactly. They don’t hurt, though,” Crowley shrugged, trying not to choke with Aziraphale holding his hand. “You, um. You seemed to like talking to those theater people. Do you know them?” 

“Oh, they’re a local company and they just wrapped up a production of Hamlet. It was lovely,” Aziraphale told him, releasing Crowley’s hand. “I took a night off last weekend to see it.” 

“I was wondering where you were,” Crowley said before he could stop himself and then he blushed, trying to choke down another mouthful of coffee as a distraction. “I mean, I was in, and Newt was here but you weren’t.” 

“Perhaps next time we could go see a show together,” Aziraphale suggested innocently. Crowley grinned. 

“That’d be nice, angel.” He motioned to the women in the corner. “Think Newt has a shot with her?” 

Aziraphale snorted. “He might, if he ever worked up the courage to introduce himself. She’s been in a few times and he won’t even take her order.” 

“Cute,” Crowley snickered. Of course, even with the few times he’d been in since the power outage, he hadn’t managed to get Aziraphale’s number, either. Just as he was about to ask, one of the theater people waved at Aziraphale, wanting to add to their order, and the angel shot Crowley an apologetic look before darting off. He sighed. 

“You should ask him out,” a quiet voice said at his elbow. Crowley started, spilling coffee over his hand. He turned and Anathema was standing behind him, looking very serious. “Before it’s too late.” 

Crowley frowned. “Too late? Sounds ominous.” 

“Someone is coming.” Her eyes slid closed and she made a sweeping motion with her hand. “It could complicate things. Tracy says he talks about you a lot.” Her eyes opened again. “You should ask him out before someone else grabs him. Your auras are compatible.” 

“Ahhhhhh I honestly don’t know how to reply to that,” Crowley said, turning back to the counter and his coffee. She hummed and decided to return to her table, countering the angel’s path as he worked his way over to Crowley. 

“Oh, Crowley, I meant to ask you. I got the strangest message,” Aziraphale said, placing an empty tray down on the counter so he could slide his phone from his pocket. “I was wondering if you might know what it meant.” 

Crowley took the phone, an older model than his own flashy device, and looked down at the screen. The message was sent from someone with the name “Love Dove” and there were a few heart and dove emojis after the contact name. It was the first message, though, as if the number had just been given out or all the previous messages had been deleted.

The message itself was weird.

It consisted of four toilet emojis, an octopus, followed by three question marks and an exclamation point. Crowley raised an eyebrow.

“D’you know this person really well?” Crowley asked, tilting the phone to point out the contact name. Aziraphale turned exceeding red (well if that wasn’t a theme for the night, he thought, remembering Newt’s reaction to Anathema) and snatched the phone back, going into his contacts. 

“That’s his old name. I thought I changed it,” Aziraphale said quickly. He flipped the phone around again so this time Crowley could see it clearly reading ‘Mortal Foe’. Crowley snickered.

“Bad break-up, then?” he asked, taking a sip of coffee. Aziraphale nodded, keeping his eyes away as he watched Newt come out of the kitchen to deliver food to the theater group. 

“The worst,” Aziraphale murmured. Crowley made a tutting sound with his tongue. 

“I dunno about toilets but a kid told me once that the octopus means cuddles,” he told him, watching for a reaction out of his favorite waiter. He laughed as Aziraphale pulled a disgusted face, but it sounded a bit hollow as he wondered how recent the break-up was, or if Aziraphale still had feelings for the guy.

“Well, I shall certainly ignore that,” Aziraphale muttered indignantly. Crowley cursed at himself, utterly smitten with the prissy, rigid stance and frank expression of polite disgust that Aziraphale was wearing. He was still holding his phone, though. He hadn’t put it away. “Do you. That is, would you perhaps.. Do you think-” 

Crowley’s eyebrows raised, and his eyes, under their safe dark cover, went wide. “Are you asking for my phone number, angel?” 

Aziraphale blushed, but he held out his phone. “Would you mind?” 

Crowley’s fingers brushed Aziraphale’s as he took the phone, trying hard to look cool but his pleased smile was ruining it. He opened the contacts and added himself, no first name, and several demon emojis after his last, and then he texted his own phone so he could save Aziraphale’s number as well. He handed the phone back to the angel without a word, delighting in how affronted Aziraphale was when he saw the demons. 

“Oh, good Lord,” Aziraphale muttered, but he was smiling, too. “You’ve already texted yourself! What if I wanted to send the first message?” 

“Sorry, angel. Honestly didn’t think it’d matter and now I have your number,” Crowley said. He noticed that the theater group was waving Aziraphale down again. “Your friends are looking for you.” 

Aziraphale smiled at him conspiratorially. “Can’t they see I’m busy? How dare they ask me to do my job?” 

Crowley snickered into his coffee. He took out his phone and unlocked the screen, ignoring several work-related messages. Smirking to himself, he sent out the first text- a string of octopuses. Aziraphale was talking to one of the women at the table, lifting her empty plate away and smiling, so he wasn’t checking his phone. Crowley carefully avoided eye contact as his angel swept into the back. He watched the screen as _Read_ appeared in conjunction with a rather loud crash of dishes. 

Of course, he wasn’t prepared for the reply, which was several heart-eyes faces smiling back at him. 

“Ngk!” 

“Dear, you do that quite often and I’m starting to worry about your ability to breathe or swallow,” Aziraphale said, sweeping back behind the counter. Crowley blushed, hunching over. 

“So funny, angel.” Crowley wondered if he should actually order something, or possibly at least ask for another cup of coffee. He was nearing the end of his current one but he wasn’t ready to leave. “Tell me about this _Love Dove_. Is he the reason you don’t like sunny nicknames?” 

Aziraphale stiffened and his lips faded into a facsimile of a smile- similar in structure but lacking the depth and warmth of the original. “Ah. Well, perhaps. Best not to think of that right now. More coffee?” 

“Uhhh, yeah, sure. Hey, you know, it’s alright. I don’t need to know, or anything,” Crowley said, wondering if he’d somehow screwed up. He surrendered his mug to the angel, watching pick up the carafe and pour a fresh cup for him. He placed it down in front of Crowley and then made his excuses. Something about needing to check on his other tables. Crowley sighed and watched him, first talking to the theater people, then going over to check on the two- oh wait, just the one woman. The older lady, the one with the red hair and million brightly colored accessories, she was gone, leaving only the young lady who had packed her fancy tablecloth and candles into the occult equivalent of a tackle box. Before Aziraphale could even produce a check for her, she had a handful of bills in her and was bidding him goodnight. 

“Doing alright?” Newt asked, sneaking back behind the counter to watch the girl leave. Crowley huffed, pretty much convinced he’d bollocksed up the entire evening. He nodded, taking his wallet out and throwing down a few notes himself. 

“Yeah. I better go, I’ve got a job later. Tell him I said ‘bye, okay?” Crowley asked, taking one last slurp from his mug. He turned to go and jolted as he realized the creepy girl, Anathema, was standing behind him. 

“You’re going to walk me home,” she said confidently. Crowley raised his eyebrows. 

“Oh I am, am I?” he asked, almost tempted to pull down his glasses and level her with his best stare. He did not. But he was tempted. 

“Yes. You’re going to walk me home. It will work out in your favor,” Anathema told him. Crowley let out a huff and glanced back at Newt who was looking fairly green around the edges. 

“Alright. I guess I’m going to walk her home. See ya later, Newt,” Crowley said, following the girl out the door. As they passed the window, the ginger woman was back in the booth where Anathema had been sitting and both she, and Aziraphale who was cleaning up, looked more than a little sorry to see them go. 

Later that night, or early that morning depending on which end of six a.m. you were staring at, Crowley got another message from the angel. 

_Good morning, my dear._

He sent a demon emoji back. _Good night, angel._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you liked it, please consider checking out my other fic here or come chat at me on Tumblr.
> 
> Find me on [ Tumblr ](https://madrabbitsociety.tumblr.com)  
> or on my [ My Blog ](https://www.madrabbitsociety.com/p/insta-links.html)
> 
> The original prompt was something like: "for fans of the coffeeshop au, i present the concept of: 24 Hour Diner AU. most plot action happens around 4am. there is always something vaguely eldritch going on in the background, no matter the writer’s intentions. always. the actual fic is pure plotless fluff. the protagonists are too wrapped up in their relationship anxieties to notice the minor character summoning/defeating cthulhu in the background" (Credit, I believe, goes to biggest-gaudiest-patronuses)


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